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hypnosec writes "Google has decided to take punitive actions against those websites that flood the top of their web pages with ads due to which the visitors have to scroll down to finally view the relevant contents on the page. According to Google, this type of layouts annoys the users and thus the web search company will be penalizing those websites through search results. The company disclosed this on its blog. According to Google over the top ads is not good for user experience and thus such websites might not get high ranking on Google web search."

This is probably for the best....as the article describes, miyamoto is one of the most influential game designers in the industry.
In the lead role he is currently in, he can lead others in the right direction which is a good thing, but for him to get our more original and creative games it is best to let him do his thing I think.
I am really looking forward to what will come out of this.

It will be very interesting to see how this works out.
It tested the last "Brain Control Device" (i think it was from a german company) at the Games Convention 2008 and was very surprised to see it working...with some learning of course.

Well they said with Supreme Commander that is _was_ a descendent from TA...and I still think it _is_ innovative in comparision with other games from the genre....too bad they are throwing it all away in the second part.

btw just posting to get rid of a misclicked moderation...didnt want it to be all useless though ^^

KentuckyFC writes "Metamaterials are substances with a permittivity and permeability that has been manipulated in a way that allows fine control over the behaviour of light. They have famously been used to create an invisibility cloak that hide objects from view (see, for example, here or here). Now one physicist in the US has calculated how they could be used for a much more profound demonstration: to reproduce the behaviour of light in various kinds of spacetimes, in particular a (2+2) spacetime (which means having two dimensions of space and two of time). His method is to show that there is formal mathematical analogy between the way metamaterials and spacetimes effect light. He goes on to show how a phase transition in a (2+2) spacetime leads to the creation of a (2+1) spacetime filled with photons, an event that is analogous to the Big Bang."Link to Original Source

puroresu (1585025) writes "Scientific American reports on the efforts of Selmer Bringsjord and his team at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who have been attempting to develop an AI possessed of an interesting character trait: pure evil.

"To be truly evil, someone must have sought to do harm by planning to commit some morally wrong action with no prompting from others (whether this person successfully executes his or her plan is beside the point). The evil person must have tried to carry out this plan with the hope of "causing considerable harm to others," Bringsjord says. Finally, "and most importantly," he adds, if this evil person were willing to analyze his or her reasons for wanting to commit this morally wrong action, these reasons would either prove to be incoherent, or they would reveal that the evil person knew he or she was doing something wrong and regarded the harm caused as a good thing.""Link to Original Source

The mirror makes the hologram appear to be "floating" in air, while the Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display shoots focused ultrasonic waves to create the feeling of a holographic ball or holographic rain falling on one's hand.

The Wii Remotes? They're used to track movement — just one of many non-gaming use scientist people are finding for Nintendo's hardware.

History's Coming To writes "xkcd creator Randall Munroe has revealed on his blag that the acclaimed stick figure comic will be produced in real dead-tree book form. Fantastic news for all fans of comedy, maths, science and relationship screw-ups, especially given that the book will be sold in aid of charity "Room To Read". Rumours that the book contains an joke in the ISBN remain unconfirmed."Link to Original Source

wisebabo (638845) writes "A panel reporting to President Obama is recommending that we skip LANDING on the Moon and Mars and instead consider progressively deeper space voyages (first to L1 earth moon point, then perhaps L2 earth sun point, then Mars flyby/orbit or asteroid visits). The astronauts could send robotic probes to land on Mars (for example) which could be much more effective without the 10 minute time lag to earth. (Can you say telepresence?).

I for one, whole-heartedly agree that this approach would lead to "the most steady cadence of steady improvement." and keep us from inconsistent achievements in space (like not leaving earth orbit for 40 years!). Some would say that this approach would be lacking in the photo-ops necessary to maintain interest in the space program (no footprints on Martian soil) but I think there would be plenty of cool vistas (rendezvous with a comet or even orbiting one of the moons of Jupiter assuming they figure out radiation shielding) to keep the taxpayer dollars flowing. The science return would be much greater because it would hopefully utilize both man and machine at their best (robots on one way trips down a gravity well while the humans provide the intuition and flexibility from orbit). If you can figure out radiation shielding and bone loss from zero-g, THE SOLAR SYSTEM IS OURS! (with a good ion drive and nuclear power plant). Okay maybe not Europa, we should attempt no landing there./* To slashdot editors: As you can see from my profile I've tried many submissions and haven't seen one accepted. A couple of times I've noticed that someone else's submission on the same subject was accepted while mine was rejected so I don't think I always have bad taste. As you can also see, I've been a prolific poster on Slashdot holding a "Excellent" Karma rating for years. So, want to enlighten me on why my posts haven't been accepted? I won't take this personally but, you know, I'll assume that you guys just aren't interested in what I have to contribute. Of course, if you decide you DO want to accept this submission, please feel free to remove this comment! */"Link to Original Source

tomlins writes "eBay is faced with the prospect of having to close down the hugely popular VIOP app Skype due to a its reliance on proprietary code still owned by Skypes' original founders who are threatening to pull the plug on the licensing agreement they have with eBay, http://whurl.me/skypeshutdown , reported by The Age"Link to Original Source

zeazzz writes to mention that the folks over at UMPC have a very cool little writeup and pictorial of a user's latest wearable PC. With the surge in smart phone adoption it seems that enthusiasm for wearable computers has dropped off a bit, which is too bad. I certainly look forward to my augmented reality HUD instead of depending on my iPhone for everything. "Essentially he took the MyVu headset, removed one of the eye pieces, and mounted the other to his glasses to that he could see his surroundings and the UX's screen at the same time. The MyVu is attached to the UX through the A/V output port on the UX's port replicator dongle. With some additional addons he provided his UX with extra battery life via an external battery, and several input methods to communicate with the UX while the rest of the kit resides within the backpack."